/*
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
 * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 * 
 *  http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 * 
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */

package com.mlizhi.base.codec;


/**
 * Defines common decoding methods for byte array decoders.
 *
 * @author Apache Software Foundation
 * @version $Id: BinaryDecoder.java 651573 2008-04-25 11:11:21Z niallp $
 */
public interface BinaryDecoder extends Decoder {

/**
 * Decodes a byte array and returns the results as a byte array. 
 *
 * @param pArray A byte array which has been encoded with the
 *  appropriate encoder
 * 
 * @return a byte array that contains decoded content
 * 
 * @throws DecoderException A decoder exception is thrown
 *  if a Decoder encounters a failure condition during
 *  the decode process.
 */
byte[] decode(byte[] pArray) throws DecoderException;
}  

